


outside the ring

by rathalos



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen, Humor, POV Outsider, basil gets a brief cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26471896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rathalos/pseuds/rathalos
Summary: In which a perfectly ordinary student is repeatedly harassed by his neighbors (and various heavily-armed strangers).
Comments: 17
Kudos: 152
Collections: Outstanding Outsider POVs





	outside the ring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [basedkhr (basedfran)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/basedfran/gifts), [ekourege](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekourege/gifts).



> where are all the pov outsider fics about how fucking batshit tsuna and everyone else is...
> 
> thanks for the title evren

Sanshiro doesn’t even get the chance to sit down in one of the cheap folding chairs in front of his favorite cafe before two figures barrel directly into the table in front of him, sending his lunch flying and causing him to drop his ramune out of sheer shock.

One of the people crashes into some other kid—Sanshiro spares him a sympathetic wince—and the other one, the taller one, skids to a stop a fair distance away from the small crowd that’s beginning to gather.

Sanshiro stares.

What the _fuck_ is wrong with people.

Unfortunately he lacks the brain cells and common sense to, y’know, start running or something, even after the guy with long hair starts waving a sword around and screaming threats at . . .

Holy. Fucking. Crap.

Sanshiro _recognizes_ those kids.

That’s—that’s Sawada, his next door neighbor (the weird one; the Iwabuchi family, living in the house to Sanshio’s right, are fine). And Sasagawa, and Gokudera and Yamamoto, all in Sanshiro’s class _,_ standing in a loose semi-circle around someone whose entire forehead appears to be glowing with bright blue fire.

Okay, time for a reality check.

Sanshiro looks down at his hands. Counts his fingers. Wiggles them.

They look fine.

Warily, he returns his gaze to the escalating scene unfolding before his eyes. Unsurprisingly, most other people have vacated the area, save for a few who are recording with their phones.

The swordsman yells something violent-sounding and launches himself toward the small group of kids, punting the on-fire one (who, thank god, Sanshiro isn’t familiar with) through the glass window of the cafe—ouch—and turning on Sawada, advancing with his sword held high and a grin on his face that finally clues Sanshiro into the fact that, oh, hey, he should probably be getting the fuck out of here.

He takes off at a dead sprint in the direction of the train station.

It’s a good thing he left while he could, too; only seconds after he makes his escape, he hears an ear-shattering _BOOM_ coupled with the sound of something huge falling into the river.

. . . Yeah. If he wasn’t avoiding Sawada and his little posse before, Sanshiro _definitely_ is now.

*

Being next-door neighbors with the Sawada family can be a chore sometimes.

From the regular explosions Sanshiro pretends he doesn’t hear to the odd assortment of people found entering and exiting the house at all hours of the day to the regular fights he sees at school that he’s _certain_ have some link to the guy—it’s. A lot.

It’s never been this _blatant_ though.

Before this, Sanshiro had been happy to stuff his fingers in his ears and carry on with his day no matter the frankly _freakish_ shenanigans that Tsuna and his gaggle of friends get up to. Not even when he saw the pizza delivery girl murder a bird with whatever the fuck was in that box, and then proceed to start living at Sawada’s house.

The mere memory of it makes Sanshiro want to slam his head into his desk.

Recently, though, things have been veering into the territory of actually dangerous. As in, life-threatening. _As in,_ he rounded the corner of the street and almost had his head lopped off by Yamamoto.

“Did you just try to kill me?” Sanshiro asks, voice cracking.

“Oh, sorry!” Yamamoto says. The bags under his eyes lend a frantic edge to his otherwise-friendly apology. Sanshiro tries not to let his discomfort show on his face. “I thought you were someone else. You know?”

“Yeah, totally! I get people confused all the time too,” Sanshiro lies.

What the hell? Is he implying that if it had been someone else, he actually _would_ have decapitated them?

“We’re cool, right?” Yamamoto asks, putting away his—hold on a minute. Sanshiro could have _sworn_ the bamboo sword Yamamoto is currently holding had been an actual, real metal sword just moments ago. “Like, no hard feelings?”

“Uhhhhh . . . yeah,” Sanshiro says, inching away from Yamamoto.

Maybe if he’s quiet enough about it, he can slip away while Yamamoto’s still talking. But because the universe hates Sanshiro, Yamamoto slings his comically long duffel bag over his shoulder and proceeds to _follow him to school._

“Good. That’s relieving,” Yamamoto says, shoving his hands into his pockets and matching stride with Sanshiro. “Sorry again. I’ve just been, like, really stressed out lately. A lot’s been happening.”

“I can. Uh. I can tell,” Sanshiro says, hunching his shoulders in order to appear smaller.

He’d _thought_ Yamamoto was the relatively normal one out of the group, but this meeting has proven that Sanshiro is complete shit at reading people.

The worst thing is, he can’t even ditch Yamamoto at the gate. They’re in the same class, so he has to enter the school with him, wait for Yamamoto to stow his duffel bag in one of the special equipment lockers, endure the hordes of Yamamoto’s friend-acquaintances who greet him good morning, and then awkwardly climb the stairs together while Yamamoto rambles about nothing.

Just before they enter the class, while Sanshiro’s _still_ reeling from nearly dying at the hands of a blade he’s not even sure exists anymore, Yamamoto says, “Good talk. You’re a great listener,” which effectively fries Sanshiro’s nerves for the rest of the day.

That. Was. Not. A. Talk.

Sanshiro sits down. Stares at his desk for so long his neck begins to hurt. And sighs, resigned.

(The prospect of blunt force trauma to the head has never before been so appealing.)

*

The next day while Sanshiro’s walking to the convenience store, he manages to get bodied by the older Sasagawa sibling. The one who’d been involved in some drama in the sports festival last year and who Sanshiro has definitely seen hanging around Tsuna, not Sasagawa-the-Younger who’d been present for . . . whatever the mess at that mall had been.

Sanshiro wants to move on from that, but his brain is stuck on it. He _knows_ he’s seen that blue-fire kid around Sawada’s house a couple of times. There’s no sign of the violent-loud-swordsman, but with Sanshiro’s luck it’s only a matter of time. No more explosions—big ones, at least, because Gokudera is always blowing shit up—and no more obscenities screamed at a group of fourteen-year-olds.

But Sanshiro’s had _dreams_ about the Mall Incident. That’s how bad this is.

Whatever.

The clear takeaway from this situation is that both Sasagawa siblings are To Be Stayed Away From.

When Sanshiro has had enough of being stuck inside his own head, he peels his face off the concrete and actually looks up at the guy.

Oh, wow. He sure does regret leaving the house for a snack run!

Sasagawa-the-Older is obviously in the middle of a run, or some kind of other training; the excited light in his eyes is oddly harsh and kind of hurts to look at, so Sanshiro has to stare at the guy’s forehead instead of making eye contact, but honestly, that isn’t even the weird part.

The weird part the baby clinging to his head, using what little hair Sasagawa-the-Older possesses as a handhold.

Is. Is that _safe?_

“I am extremely sorry for causing you to fall over!” Sasagawa-the-Older apologizes, nearly blasting Sanshiro’s eardrums into the atmosphere. “Allow me to help you up!”

“A-ah. Hi, Sasagawa-senpai. Hi,” Sanshiro greets shakily, ignoring Sasagawa-the-Older’s assistance and standing on his own. “I, um, didn’t know you had a brother?”

“Oh, this?” Sasagawa-the-Older asks, pointing to the baby. “He’s not my brother! He’s my teacher, Colonnello-sensei! I am completing an intense training regimen under his supervision! EXTREME!”

The baby’s . . . Colonnello’s . . . eyes are hard to meet, too; his gaze is intense and scrutinizing, like he’s picking Sanshiro apart, laying out and analyzing his every weakness.

Sanshiro makes a face. What emotion his expression is trying to convey, he doesn’t know. It’s a battle between disgust, discomfort, and horror.

“Bye,” Sanshiro says, turning around and heading straight home.

“WAIT! Are you okay—”

“Bye, Sasagawa-senpai!”

Fuck the convenience store. He can survive without snacks for one day.

*

Honestly, though, he’s _used_ to Sawada running almost naked through the neighborhood streets. It had been terrifying at first, but now? After about a year of Sawada regularly getting up to high-speed, low-clothes shenanigans? Sanshiro has acclimated.

But he hadn’t been ready for this.

Never this.

This morning, Sanshiro’s mom had sent him on a hike into Namimori’s forest and hills because, as she put it, “You’re always in your room these days! Go outside! Feel the sunshine! The fresh air! Your body will waste away if all you do is lie in bed. Your brother and sisters aren’t nearly as lazy as you!”

That’s not even true, actually, because Sanshiro’s favored location is hunched over in his desk chair like a capital C. But, like. Whatever, right?

After today, though, Sanshiro just might never leave his house again.

He’s been avoiding the intermittent explosions going off every thirty seconds ago, heading in the opposite direction as far away as he can because there’s _no way_ Sanshiro is going to confront that today. As it turns out, Sanshiro is apparently not allowed to have even _one day_ go by where nothing happens.

About an hour into his hike/walk/expedition/mother-appeasing activity, he finds Sawada collapsed at the base of the tallest cliff around, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and one hideous mitten on each hand. He doesn’t even have _shoes_ on.

Sanshiro sighs.

“Sawada-san?” he asks, gently nudging Sawada’s seemingly unconscious body with the tip of his shoe. Sawada doesn’t respond. Sanshiro nudges harder, this time in the ribs. “Sawada-san? Are you okay?”

He should . . . probably call an ambulance, to be honest. Sawada doesn’t look all that good, what with the numerous scratches, scrapes, and scuffs scattered all over his body and concentrated on his knees and the palms of his hands. But the temptation to just turn away and absolve himself of the entire situation is so, _so_ strong.

Unluckily for him, he never even gets to decide whether he’ll help or be a dickbag; a childish voice breaks him out of his thoughts, and he nearly topples over from surprise.

“You. What are you doing here?”

Oh, it’s Sawada’s creepy little brother. What was his name? Hmm. Nope, nothing. Maybe it’s better that Sanshiro doesn’t know. Means he hasn’t been completely swallowed up by the shitshow that is Sawada’s life.

“I . . . am I not allowed to be here?” Sanshiro asks the kid, slightly baffled. “Also—is he okay? Do I need to call help?”

The baby/toddler/hell child/whatever scoffs, crosses the short distance between himself and Sawada, and bonks Sawada on the head with an obscenely large, bright green mallet.

As Sawada miraculously revives, spluttering in offense and presumably embarrassment, Sanshiro does a discreet reality check.

Damnit. He’s definitely awake.

“Chihaya-san!” Sawada yelps, scrambling to his feet and going red as an apple, “I—uh—what are you doing here!?”

“He was just leaving,” the baby cuts in, staring at Sanshiro with cold, emotionless eyes that are in complete contrast with his cutesy, high-pitched voice and slight lisp.

“Sure. Sure I was,” Sanshiro says. “See you at school tomorrow, Sawada-san.”

“Ah—! B-bye!”

As soon as the two are out of earshot, Sanshiro buries his head in his hands.

Why is it always him?

*

Sanshiro doesn’t usually come up to the roof outside of his gardening club meetings on Wednesdays and Thursdays; watering the plants during the other days of the week is usually reserved for Hamamura, the president of the club. But Hamamura is absent today and everyone knows Sanshiro is Doormat Supreme, King of Weak Spines, so he got stuck with watering duty instead of Fujita, the vice president.

The moment he pushes the door open, he already regrets getting out of bed; Hibari (who frequents the rooftop and is a Known Hazard) and some random are out there attacking each other in front of the planters.

Sanshiro attempts to back away, head down the stairwell and forget he ever saw this, but Hibari’s head snaps toward him before he can take a single step. In a flash, he’s standing in front of Sanshiro, looming over him threateningly.

“What are you doing here.”

Sanshiro laughs nervously, flinching when Hibari raises his arm (and by extension one of his tonfa).

“I—” His voice cracks. “I, um . . . H-Hamamura-senpai’s, uh, absent today and she’s supposed to water the plants during . . . lunch . . . time?”

Hibari leans back slightly, expression no longer angry but . . . okay, well, it’s slightly less angry.

“Hmm. Fine. But make it quick, herbivore,” Hibari orders, stepping out of the way and stalking back towards Blond Stranger.

“Kyoya, what—”

“Shut up,” Hibari snaps, immediately launching himself towards Blond Stranger.

Very, very carefully, Sanshiro waters the plants, taking the ultimate precautions not to look in Hibari’s direction and to ignore the occasional thuds, slams, grunts of pain, snarling, growling, promises of death, and distressed yelps.

He already knows Hibari has something weird going on with Sawada—Sanshiro’s seen him next door too many times _not_ to suspect something’s up—so at this point, he shouldn’t even be surprised. But he had been hoping that not everything going on lately would be connected with Sawada.

He’s wrapping up the watering—just the tomato plants left—when he hears another whip-crack and the planter box in front of him explodes in a shower of wood chips, dirt, and leaves.

Sanshiro debates the pros and cons of just lying down and having a breakdown.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry!”

Blond Stranger (at this point Sanshiro doesn’t even _want_ to know who he is—Stranger will suffice, thank you very much) crouches down next to Sanshiro, hands hovering shakily over the pathetic remains of the garden.

“ **You.** ”

The fury in Hibari’s voice is enough to make Sanshiro perform a full-body flinch, and completely without warning, the prefect grabs Sanshiro by the back of his uniform and fucking _lifts_ him.

Sanshiro makes a choked-off noise in the back of his throat, hands scrabbling at his collar in an attempt to win some air back. It’s fruitless; he’s left struggling uselessly while Hibari marches him towards the stairwell, tosses him in so hard Sanshiro slams against the opposite wall, and leaves.

Just.

Leaves.

The door falls shut with a clang, leaving Sanshiro alone with his thoughts while Hibari’s beatdown of the stranger continues.

How the hell is he going to explain this to Hamamura?

*

The Sawada household really _has_ been rowdier than usual.

It’s not that Sanshiro is specifically paying attention to that house—if he had the choice, he would never fucking look at it again or even walk past it—but it’s gotten so bad that it’s impossible to ignore it.

He’s sure his mom has complained to the authorities at one point, along with every single other member of the Neighborhood Gossip Circle, but Sanshiro highly doubts anything has actually been done about the problem.

Sanshiro’s seen at least _four_ sleek, expensive-looking cars pull up in front of Sawada’s house today for no damn reason at all. He’s spotted Hibari lurking in the trees, Gokudera pacing aimlessly around the neighborhood, and Yamamoto just fucking lying on the ground in the backyard while two younger children run circles around him.

(Sanshiro has never directly interacted with the kids, and from what he’s seen, that’s a blessing and miracle. His siblings have all somehow avoided them, too.)

All good and valid reasons not to leave the house today.

. . . Or they would be if he didn’t have to go to the store to buy some milk.

Sanshiro has come to learn that most, if not all, of the seemingly never-ending residents of the household WILL attack or otherwise approach him if he comes too close. As a result, Sanshiro’s had to master the art of Walking Past the House Very Carefully. Some days it doesn’t work and he still gets front-row seats to the newest mishaps and mayhem his neighbors have to offer, but for the most part he’s never been _too_ caught up in it.

Sanshiro has two rules about walking past Sawada’s house.

One: cross the street and walk on the opposite side. Sanshiro has borne witness to far too many near-death situations to even consider getting that close.

Two: don’t look. He once made eye contact with the Delivery-Girl-Who-Just-Lives-There now and she tried to brain him with a smoking purple piece of cake. He escaped. Barely.

As he begins to cross the narrow road, hunching his shoulders, head down so it’s obvious he’s minding his own business, he hears a loud shriek followed by a cheer and raucous laughter.

“Stop! I HATE being thrown!”

Oh, that’s Sawada.

“Ah, but you used to love this! Where’s that cute little Tuna-fish I used to know?”

Sanshiro doesn’t recognize that voice. He hopes he never _has_ to.

_Thunk._

Something falls to the ground in front of him, rolling at a stop directly in front of his feet. He stares at the little green . . . _thing_ uncomprehendingly for a few seconds before his brain starts to resume functionality.

He realizes it’s a grenade. By this point he knows there’s no point in stopping to question whether it’s a toy or not. The smart thing to do is get the hell out of there, so Sanshiro just starts fucking sprinting.

The grenade explodes a few seconds later; the force of the detonation is enough to send a tremor through his legs, and the blast of heat that washes over Sanshiro’s back is near-searing.

He doesn’t stick around for long enough to witness the aftermath of that incident, or the grief of whoever’s fence has been freshly destroyed (unfortunately, property damage has been a recurring theme over the past year and a half).

Sanshiro has places to be. 

Hopefully his mom won’t mind him staying away from home for a couple hours while whatever _that_ was blows over.

*

The next week is oddly, blessedly peaceful. That _never_ means anything good; tranquility is only a precursor for more chaos, more stress that Sanshiro has to deal with.

Sanshiro sighs, kicking the door of the school roof open while trying not to drop the armful of wood planks he’s carrying. It’s Sunday, which drastically lowers the chances of running into Hibari (that doesn’t at all make them zero, though—Sanshiro has undeniably seen Hibari lurking around the otherwise unoccupied school building) but he’s on his guard all the same.

He (and Hamamura, but she’s still downstairs) are here to finally fix the garden. Since Sanshiro had been the only member of the club present when it was destroyed, Hamamura had elected him to come help her, which is . . . yeah, that’s fair.

To be honest, Sanshiro doesn’t mind that much. He likes building things, and it also means he gets some time away from home, away from his three younger siblings who haven’t learned the definition of “quiet” yet.

He sets the planks down, taking a moment to catch his breath.

There’s still some more stuff that he has to carry up. A few more planks, a bag of perlite, the tools, and the tomato cages, since those had been horribly deformed during Hibari’s clash with that random guy. Hamamura’s handling the soil—which is good, because while _she_ may be able to carry a bag over her shoulder and climb the stairs too, Sanshiro would actually collapse if he had to deal with that kind of physical labor.

So. Yeah.

The door of the roof squeaks open again, hinges screaming in shrill protest.

“Hey, Chihaya-kun,” Hamamura says, coming up to him and setting the bag of soil down, leaning it against one of the two intact raised-beds. Sanshiro sighs. He’s so jealous of her muscles. “Looks pretty good, right? Fujita-san and I were cleaning up for hours yesterday. It was, uh. It was something!”

“You weren’t there when it got trashed,” Sanshiro mutters, bracing his hands on his knees and standing.

“Ah, I feel bad for you,” Hamamura sighs. “It feels like you have to put up with these kinds of things way more than the rest of us.”

That’s _really_ saying something, considering Hamamura had (apparently) been a delinquent in her first year and thus subject to many of Hibari’s “bite-to-death” episodes.

“Anyways,” Hamamura continues, “do you know what’s going on outside?”

“We are outside,” Sanshiro says.

“No, like—downstairs. Go look.”

Hamamura points in the vague direction of the school gate, and Sanshiro walks to the fence, peering over its side and getting an eyeful of . . . of . . .

“What is that?” Sanshiro asks, gaze glued towards the not-small crowd of people, most of which are clearly adults and not school staff. They’re gathered around a square, tall—thing?

Sanshiro doesn’t even know what he’s looking at.

“Should we do something?” Hamamura asks, fingers wrapped gently around the railing. “I don’t think they’re supposed to be here.”

No. They most definitely are _not_. And Sanshiro gets the sinking, dreadful feeling that this is related to whatever’s been going on lately with Sawada. _Everything_ on this level of unreal is related to him in some way or another.

Oh, well. He has no fucks left to give at this point.

“HEY!” Sanshiro calls, as loudly as he can, cupping his hands over his mouth. “YOU GUYS AREN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HERE!”

A flash of motion catches his eye—someone pokes their head around the corner of the, uh, the thing, and the blood drains from Sanshiro’s face, because he _recognizes_ him. That’s long-hair-tall-loud-swordsman.

“FUCK OFF!” the swordsman yells, brandishing his sword at Sanshiro. It obviously can’t _do_ anything from three stories away, but, like, it still scares him enough to make him lean back from the railing. “STAY INSIDE IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU!”

“Should we . . . um . . . ” Hamamura pushes away from the railing, sending one last troubled glance down at the gathering before tugging Sanshiro back towards the garden. “Should we call someone?”

“I genuinely do not think it would do much, Hamamura-senpai,” Sanshiro says, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Let’s just—let’s just work on the garden, yeah?”

“ . . . Yeah.”

Later that night, when Sanshiro gets home, he’s promptly swarmed by his younger siblings, clamoring for his attention, asking how his day has been.

“Bad,” he says shortly, shaking Mariko off his arm and giving Masuo a stern look. Chisato, ever the angel, hangs back a careful distance, but it’s clear she’s excited that Sanshiro is home after a long day of absence. “Like, really bad.”

“Not as bad as mine!” Masuo says. “I broke my stuffed animal today.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Sanshiro mutters. When Masuo gives him a confused look, he shakes his head, saying, “Nevermind. But really? Your stuffed animal? That’s terrible. Come on, where is it? Lemme see if I can sew it together.”

“Yay!” Masuo cheers, latching onto him again and attempting to climb up his back. Sanshiro sighs fondly, crouching down to give his brother a better angle. “Go! Go go go!!!!”

“Okay, okay, I’m going.”

It’s good, at least, to know his _entire_ life hasn’t been completely swallowed up by Sawada & Co. He still has a place to destress and relax at the end of the day, a safe haven from his batshit neighbors. Sanshiro smiles, and carries Masuo into the sewing room.

He’ll probably have to do it all again next week, avoiding and keeping his head down and narrowly dodging near-fatal encounters, but . . . it’s not all bad.

**Author's Note:**

> im on tumblr @ [takeshiyamamoto](https://takeshiyamamoto.tumblr.com)


End file.
